The Rafah Massacre: A detailed rebuttal of Israel’s contradicting narratives

 Israel launched airstrikes, on May 26, against civilian tents north of Gaza’s Rafah city, murdering at least 45 people and injuring over 200. The initial Israeli response was to claim the strikes were legal, later stating that it was a mistake, before finally attempting to blame the incident on Hamas. This reaction from the Israeli government appears to have come in response to the public outcry after images of a beheaded Palestinian baby and the charred remains of civilian bodies went viral on social media.

Despite the fact that Israel has now produced three separate contradicting narratives on the horrifying Rafah bombing, it is still important to disprove each one of them as the Israeli propaganda relies on muddying the waters and sowing doubt, not necessarily trying to conclusively prove their innocence.

Narrative 1- Israel Carried Out A Precise Attack In Line With International Law

As news broke that the Israeli military had carried out a series of airstrikes on a densely populated area in Tal al-Sultan, located North-West of Rafah City in southern Gaza, mass murdering displaced civilians inside their tents, the X (formerly Twitter) account belonging to the Israeli armed forces tweeted the following:

“An IDF aircraft struck a Hamas compound in Rafah in which significant Hamas terrorists were operating a short while ago. The strike was carried out against legitimate targets under international law, through the use of precise munitions and on the basis of precise intelligence that indicated Hamas’ use of the area…”

Narrative 1 (a):

The first point made here is the allegation that “significant Hamas terrorists were operating” in the area, which is two claims in one, that these are important Hamas operatives and that they were operating in the vicinity. So, who were these two “significant Hamas terrorists”? There names were Khaled Najjar and Yassin Rabia, both were formerly involved with the armed wing of Hamas, the Qassam Brigades, in the West Bank during the Second Intifada (2000-2005) and were deported to Gaza after a prisoner exchange in 2011.

However, not only were the two not involved in the armed wing of the Hamas movement in Gaza, but the Qassam Brigades during the Second Intifada in the West Bank were long ago disbanded by the Israeli military. Today, there are small cadres affiliated with al-Qassam in the West Bank, but primarily receive their funding through the Quds Brigades of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) movement and are very small in size, often keeping their operations very much concealed. Although Khaled Najjar and Yassin Rabia were formerly active in aiding the armed struggle in the West Bank, they had no direct link to the newly formed groups that are today present in the north of the occupied territory. They claim Yassin Rabia was a Hamas “Chief of Staff for the West Bank”, which is just factually false and no such position even exists today for the Hamas military leadership there. Khaled Najjar they speak about in past tense, using vague language, in order to give the impression he had involvement recently.

These were not senior Hamas operatives and there is no evidence suggesting that they “were operating” in any capacity for Hamas at the time they were killed. Also, just using common sense, why would they be in an open area like this, without any cover and be coordinating with the small cadres in the West Bank, which anyone with knowledge of the groups understands are not receiving daily orders from Gaza, as is portrayed.

Narrative 1 (b):

The next part of the Israeli narrative is that their strikes were carried out in accordance with International Law and used precision munitions to precisely hit legitimate targets. We have already dealt with the alleged targets themselves, however, for the purposes of illustrating the point, let’s assume that both of these individuals were indeed senior Hamas operatives.

To kill over 40 civilians and injure 200 in an attack on two militants is not considered to be proportionate under International Law, because of a basic principle known as proportionality. Israel knows this, which is why they included a range of elements to their justification of the attack. They claimed that they struck a “Hamas compound”, for which they provided no proof whatsoever. Also attempting to provide themselves with the argument that they only targeted the two alleged Hamas operatives and gave no indication that they had considered the number of potential civilians that would be killed as a result of the strikes. Furthermore, there is also a reason why the Israeli military is claiming that these alleged Hamas operatives were senior figures and were imminent threats, because this works to give them more of a justification for what is called “collateral damage”.

According to an investigative article written for +972 Mag, which exposed the Artificial Intelligence (AI) software system used by the Israeli military named “Lavender”, the following IDF civilian to combatant ratio allowance was uncovered:

“In an unprecedented move, according to two of the sources, the army also decided during the first weeks of the war that, for every junior Hamas operative that Lavender marked, it was permissible to kill up to 15 or 20 civilians; in the past, the military did not authorize any “collateral damage” during assassinations of low-ranking militants. The sources added that, in the event that the target was a senior Hamas official with the rank of battalion or brigade commander, the army on several occasions authorized the killing of more than 100 civilians in the assassination of a single commander.”

Evidently, the above-mentioned civilian to combatant kill ratios are way outside what is normally considered to be proportionate under International Law. The most important thing to keep in mind, however, is the thinking of the Israeli military, because according to this information the massacre in Rafah was roughly consistent with the allowed civilian to combatant kill ratios; whether you consider the alleged Hamas operatives to be junior or senior combatants.

Considering all of this, even if we ignore every other point mentioned above, on May 24 the International Court of Justice (ICJ) officially issued a direct order that Israel must stop their military operation in Rafah. Therefore, there is not any justification that can be mounted to defend their strikes as the top judicial body on earth has ruled that they must stop their offensive.

Narrative 2- It Was An Accident And Mistakes Were Made

Once the Israeli government realized how appalled the international community was and saw the public outcry, upon the images and videos of the massacre spreading like wildfire across social media, they suddenly pivoted and formulated a new narrative. The videos of missile strikes on refugees sheltering in tents, the horrifying video of a man holding up the beheaded lifeless body of a baby, and the images of civilians burned to a crisp, were shocking.

When the Israeli government faced condemnatory remarks, even from its closest allies, they understood the task in front of them and Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, addressed the issue and said that it appeared to have been a “tragic mistake” that his army was going to investigate. In a way, the Israelis threw their hands up in the air and feigned ignorance to how this massacre possibly occurred.

This argument is simple to debunk, because the Israeli military already announced that it had used precision missiles and “precise intelligence”. Understanding this, Netanyahu left the case open to the suggestion that there was more than meets the eye and, while contradicting his military’s previous assertions, by claiming that the massacre looked like a mistake, he made sure to pave the way to deflecting blame.

Narrative 3- It Was Not Actually Israel, It Was Hamas

The next day, the whole world was speaking about the atrocities committed in Rafah. While US President, Joe Biden, had lied about seeing “confirmed” images of “terrorists beheading children,” days after October 7, here were his real confirmed images of an actual beheaded baby and it wasn’t an Israeli child, it was a Palestinian baby.

Amidst the tens of millions of people sharing images and posts about Rafah, the Israeli military then decided to roll out their next narrative, which was to blatantly lie and try to convince the world that the whole incident was actually the fault of Hamas.

Narrative 3 (a)

Israel, on their official X account that is run by operatives from the foreign ministry, released what they claim is an intercepted call between two Palestinians. The 30 second audio released was not only suspicious, and published with an editorialized translation, but the following is the only background information provided about it:

“The IDF intercepted a call between two Gazans which suggests that secondary explosions from a Hamas ammunition warehouse near the civilian compound and over 100 meters away from the strike site may have caused yesterday’s fire in Rafah.”

In the past, these alleged audio clips have been debunked as fakes, even by corporate media. Such was the case back in October, when the UK’s Channel 4 News exposed an alleged intercepted conversation between militants to be “a fake”. According to several experts “the tone, syntax, accent and idiom are absurd“, the investigative report revealed.

Not only was there no evidence given to suggest that this new audio was any different than the previous Israeli fakes post October 7, there is proof that the Israeli military has faked audio recordings in the past. Yet, as always, we can’t just stop there, we have to question further. Let’s say it is real. Sure. Who were these “two Gazans” on the phone? When was this call made? Where were these two people? How would they have sensitive military information about Hamas munitions stored in the area? Why would they be talking over the phone about something like this when not even the Israelis themselves claim to know where the alleged secondary explosion came from? If it is so well known where Hamas military sites are, why has Israel failed to dismantle them in around 8 months of fighting? Israel has provided no answers to any of these questions and some of them answer themselves.

Narrative 3 (b) 

Israel also provided a map, claiming that “Hamas” had said the strikes occurred in the Israeli designated “safe zone” that they call al-Mawasi (named after an area located north of Khan Younis). To begin with, it was Gaza’s civil defence and health ministry that reported the strikes occurred in the “safe zone” area, not Hamas, so this attempt to frame the reports as having originated from Hamas are false.

The map depicts both the Israeli “safe zone” and the location of the airstrikes, which took place in zone 2371, one of the locations Palestinians were directed to move to in order to avoid the bombings. In order to address this, there are two possible reasons why the Israelis would be releasing such a map, either they are genuinely confused about their own “safe zone” area and where they publicly told them to go, or they are blatantly lying. On May 22nd the Israeli army not only issued instructions and extended the “safe zone” to include the zone in which the tents were located in a rather confusing way, but also distributed flyers to civilians which informed them that the location that was just targeted, burning people alive as they slept, was in fact inside the so-called “safe zone”.

To be clear, the United Nations has repeatedly stated that they do not support the idea of “safe zones” as they have historically not worked, so these areas are literally inventions of the Israeli military that are arbitrarily amended as and when they choose. These are not internationally implemented and are simply whatever Israel claims. The only reason Palestinians go there is because these areas are often away from combat zones and are where aid organizations will often choose to work for reasons of safety. In this case, however, Palestinians were seemingly directed to very location that was later bombed, and not for the first time. 

Narrative 3 (c)

The Israeli military also released a drone video showing an airstrike, which they claim is the one that happened in the area. Despite the commentary of the military spokesperson, Daniel Hagari, who asserted that the strike was targeted against the two alleged Hamas members inside a facility, who he says were in a meeting, the drone footage shows people walking around the area who appear to be engulfed in the flames of the Israeli airstrikes, and others can be seen running in fear. So, even this video appears to provide evidence that they fired on a target where civilians were present.

Accompanying this, the Israeli army released another map image which shows two separate sites in the Tal al-Sultan area, one where they claim to have launched two precision missiles and another area some 180 meters away.

This map, released by the Israeli military is also falsely labelled. The area they confirm hitting is actually known as “Kuwait Peace Camp 1“, which is an area comprised of tents. On the Israeli image, the nearby United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) facilities, marked correctly as 180 meters away, are labelled as “shelters” with a tent symbol marking the area. However, the Israeli map refuses to mark Kuwait Peace Camp 1 as a tent shelter area. This is deliberately misleading, as is the language of Israeli Spokesperson, Daniel Hagari, when he says the “designated humanitarian area” is where the UNRWA facilities are located, before referring to tents within the Kuwait Peace Camp 1 area as “specific targets“.

The area has been independently geolocated in order to bring us accurate maps, which directly expose the propagandistic distortions present in Israel’s representation of the site. Sources I spoke to on the ground, who were actually present at the UNRWA facility side of the site, themselves recollected the moments of the explosions and confirmed that the area, as is evidenced by the videos from the scene of the massacre, was packed with tents that sheltered civilians. While Israel claims that the tents hit were “specific structures”, the UNRWA site nearby was actually the area which had more stable structures, while the Kuwait Peace Camp 1, as the name suggests, was a camp site packed with tents.

In addition to all this, if we circle back to Israel’s original statement on the massacre, they claim that the “IDF aircraft struck a Hamas compound in Rafah in which significant Hamas terrorists were operating”. This means that the narrative has either changed, or the Israeli army is trying to pass off the tents in Kuwait Peace Camp 1 as a “Hamas compound”. Also, it is rather confusing that they claimed that the “Hamas terrorists were operating” in the camp and are now telling the world that they were simply in a meeting.

Narrative 3 (d)

There is then the followup claim, made by the Israeli military, that their precision strikes alone could not have caused the fire that erupted. They then attempt to suggest that Hamas “weapons stored in a compound” nearby exploded, to which the “Israel Defence Force” X account commented the following:

“We are looking into the possibility of secondary explosions from a Hamas ammunition warehouse near the civilian compound and over 100 meters away from the strike site—causing the fire that tragically took civilian lives.”

This is a confusing accusation to say the least, due to it being completely illogical no matter which way you spin it. Firstly, they are using the word “warehouse” to describe what they have also called a “compound”, while using the word “compound” to describe the tents in Kuwait Peace Camp 1. On top of this, they say that the alleged “Hamas ammunition warehouse” is over 100 meters away from the location they struck.

The elephant in the room here is that if they claim that their munitions weren’t large enough to have caused the fire that erupted in Kuwait Peace Camp 1, then how on earth would they be powerful enough to ignite a “ammunition warehouse” over 100 meters away? Then, if the alleged “ammunition warehouse” was indeed the source of the fire, then why were there no explosions documented elsewhere and why was it only the same location that the Israeli missiles hit that caught fire? Nothing at all adds up here, which is on top of the fact that there is no evidence of a Hamas weapons storage site ever existing or any secondary explosions, which would have been easily identifiable on the satellite images released of the area.

Also, the fire is easily explainable and is no mystery at all. Each one of these tents usually contain a gas cylinder for cooking and heating water. It is obvious that if you fire a missile into a tent containing a gas cylinder, there is a high likelihood of it igniting, and the fact that Israel fails to even mention this as a possibility is quite telling.

Although the initial reports from on the ground stated that the Israeli Air Force had launched 7 missiles, Israel is claiming to have launched 2. These two missiles, which the Israeli military does not name, are claimed to only weigh 17 kilograms (37.5 pounds). A CNN investigative piece geolocated the wreckage of missile fragments at the scene of the Kuwait Peace Camp 1 massacre site. The report cited four explosive weapons experts, who all concluded that the munition part was of a US-made GBU-39 small diameter bomb (SDB) variant. While three of the experts concluded it was a GBU-39, they also stated that they couldn’t conclude whether it was the smaller variant that would make the weapon roughly consistent with the Israeli weight claimed, or the larger 250 pound variant, due to a lack of evidence. Trevor Ball, a former US Army senior explosive ordnance disposal team member, however, did tell CNN that he believed that due to him not seeing the dark residue consistent with the 250 pound bomb, he concluded that it wasn’t the larger munition, despite not having a clear picture of the entire scene.

Whether it was the larger or smaller munition still requires further investigation, which is what the UN has demanded. This is especially the case as Israel has continued to strike civilians in tents since the massacre at Kuwait Peace Camp 1, in one case 21 civilians were killed in an designated evacuation zone near Rafah, which Israel also predictably denied committing. Also, according to the CNN article, the larger munition is actually designed to cause less collateral damage than the smaller GBU-39 small diameter bomb variant.

The Conclusion

Israel’s deceptive language, misleading labelling of maps, contradicting narratives, illogical and confusing allegations, combined with pieces of unverifiable information, clearly point to a cover up. Israel’s various narratives are likely designed to try and muddy the waters in order to confuse an international audience, especially those who are not familiar with their history of similar fabrications.