The IDF’s General Staff’s Fact-Finding and Assessment Mechanism will investigate a strike carried out in Rafah which sparked a fire in which at least 45 Palestinians were killed, the IDF said Monday.

The investigation was opened on the order of the Military Advocate General, Maj.-Gen. Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi.

The IDF said the strike targeted two senior Hamas terrorists in the Tal as Sultan area, based on prior intelligence information about their presence at the site. The two were identified as Yassin Rabia, the commander of Hamas’s leadership in the West Bank, and Khaled Nagar, a senior official in Hamas’s West Bank wing.

Rabia managed the entirety of Hamas' terrorist activity in  the West Bank, transferred funds to terrorists, and planned terrorist attacks throughout the West Bank. He also carried out several murderous terrorist attacks in 2001 and 2002.

As for Nagar, he oversaw shooting attacks and transferred funds for Hamas’s terrorist activity in Gaza. Nagar also carried out several deadly terrorist attacks between 2001 and 2003.

Mourners react next to the bodies of Palestinians killed in an Israeli strike on Rafah, during their funeral in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, May 27, 2024. (credit: MOHAMMED SALEM/REUTERS)
Mourners react next to the bodies of Palestinians killed in an Israeli strike on Rafah, during their funeral in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, May 27, 2024. (credit: MOHAMMED SALEM/REUTERS)

The Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza reported that 45 people were killed in the strike and the ensuing blaze in Rafah on Sunday night. Footage from the scene showed bodies being pulled out of tents and haphazard structures consumed by a large fire.
The IDF noted that it had taken “several steps” to reduce the risk of harming uninvolved civilians, including through aerial surveillance, the deployment of precise munitions, and additional intelligence information. It said that, based on these measures, the assessment was that uninvolved civilians would not be harmed during the operation.

The IDF stressed that, contrary to some initial reports, the strike did not hit the humanitarian area in Al-Mawasi and Khan Yunis. The army said that it “regrets any harm to uninvolved civilians during combat.”

The General Staff’s Fact-Finding and Assessment Mechanism is an independent body responsible for examining exceptional incidents during combat.

Military Advocate General calls Rafah incident 'very difficult'

Earlier on Monday, the Military Advocate General said that the turn of events in Rafah was under review, calling it a “very difficult” incident.Tomer-Yerushalmi stressed that while there have been incidents in which there was a suspicion of violations of the laws of war and military orders during warfare, these are “exceptions, not the rule, and they do not bely a policy that deviates from the law.”

ABOUT 70 investigations have been opened by the Military Police Criminal Investigation Division into incidents that have occurred throughout the war. These investigations include one that is looking into allegations made concerning the treatment of detainees at the Sde Teiman detention camp.

“We take these allegations very seriously and are working to see them through,” said Tomer-Yerushalmi.

The investigations being conducted also included cases of uninvolved civilians being killed in combat circumstances, incidents of violence, property crimes, and looting. Some incidents were found to not cross the criminal threshold and were referred to commanders who were charged with taking disciplinary measures.

“Some claim – and these are claims that we have heard more than once in the past – that the ‘cannons are rumbling! Why are you prioritizing investigating soldiers amid combat?’ Some go even further and claim that in any case, the internal enforcement is ineffective in preventing proceedings regarding the international arena,” Tomer-Yerushalmi maintained.
“The IDF’s commitment to the law does not stem from the concern posed by the international arena. It is rooted, first and foremost, in the fact that the State of Israel is a state of law. The rule of law and the purity of arms are values woven into the IDF’s code of ethics from the day it was established,” she punctuated.

The Military Advocate General stressed that Israel has been working for decades to enforce the rule of law and the purity of arms, pointing to the Hula massacre in 1948, when soldiers shot at least 35 men and then blew up a house on top of them, and the Kafr Kassem massacre in 1956 when 49 Arab-Israelis were killed by Border Police officers, as examples.

In the case of the Hula massacre, the commander responsible was sentenced to seven years in prison, but that sentence was later dropped to one year. In the case of Kafr Qasim, eleven Border Police officers and soldiers were court-martialed, with some receiving sentences as long as 17 years, but all of those convicted were released early within a few years of the massacre. The brigade commander involved in that incident received a symbolic punishment of a 10 prutot fine (prutot is the predecessor to the agora, being a tenth of one).

“Maintaining clear boundaries, even in war, more so, during war, and enforcing the law when these boundaries are crossed, is a clear expression of the deep difference between us and our enemies. This is how we have operated in the IDF since the first day of the war, and we are proud of it,” said Tomer-Yerushalmi.
Additionally, on Monday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu referenced the incident in Rafah in a speech in the Knesset plenum, calling it a “tragic error” and saying it would be investigated.