The Israeli army disavowed its responsibility for a massacre that occurred earlier Tuesday, in the Al-Mawasi area in Rafah, south of the Gaza Strip, which resulted in the killing of 21 Palestinians.

This came in a brief statement by Israeli army spokesman Daniel Hagari, on Tuesday evening, in which he claimed: “Contrary to reports received in the past few hours, the Israeli army did not attack the humanitarian area in Al-Mawasi,” without further details.

On Tuesday, 21 Palestinians were martyred and others were injured in a new massacre committed by the Israeli army by bombing a camp for displaced people in the Al-Mawasi area in Rafah. This is the third targeting of displaced persons’ tents within 48 hours in areas that the army claimed were safe and people could move to.

On Tuesday, Hamas said in a statement that the “Zionist enemy” continues to “target the tents of the displaced people west of Rafah, and commit a new massacre that claimed the lives of dozens of martyrs and wounded.”

She added, "He is actively challenging the decisions of the International Court of Justice, through his decision to directly and deliberately target the largest number of civilians."

The Israeli army had previously designated the Al-Mawasi area as “safe,” and did not ask the displaced to evacuate.

According to local Palestinian sources, the targeted tents were located about 100 meters from the American field hospital west of Rafah.

On Sunday, Israel killed 45 Palestinians and wounded 249, most of them children and women, with an air strike it launched on displaced persons’ tents in the Tal al-Sultan area, northwest of Rafah, in the areas it claimed were “safe” at the beginning of its forces’ land entry into Rafah on May 6 last year.

Commenting on this, Hagari claimed in a previous press conference on Tuesday that the warplanes “targeted a building that housed Hamas militants last Sunday, and that there were no displaced persons’ tents near this building.”

He claimed, "The air strike took place in an area 1.5 kilometers away from the Al-Mawasi area, which was classified as safe," and that the raid was carried out "using ammunition with small warheads."

He continued: "After the raid, a large fire broke out for reasons we are investigating," claiming that the ammunition used in the raid "could not alone have caused a fire of this size."

The leader of the Hamas movement commented on this in a statement, saying, “Israel’s attempts to justify its recent massacres in the Rafah governorate, south of the Gaza Strip, by saying that it was targeting resistance fighters are ridiculous arguments that the world will not believe. Most of the victims are displaced civilians in their tents, and there are no gunmen among them.”

Despite the massive international wave of discontent caused by this “massacre,” the Israeli army renewed its targeting of the Tal al-Sultan area at dawn on Tuesday. As a result, 7 Palestinians were killed and others were injured.

Since last October 7, Israel has been waging a devastating war on the Gaza Strip, leaving more than 117,000 Palestinians dead and wounded, most of them children and women, and about 10,000 missing amid massive destruction and famine that claimed the lives of children and the elderly.

Israel continues this war, ignoring a Security Council resolution demanding that it stop the fighting immediately, and orders from the Court of Justice demanding that it stop its attack on Rafah, and take immediate measures to prevent acts of “genocide” and “improve the humanitarian situation” in Gaza.

Source: Anatolia