Macron ‘outraged’ by Israeli strikes on Rafah

The French leader has called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza

Israel must respect international law and stop its military operation in Rafah, French President Emmanuel Macron said on Monday, following a deadly airstrike on the city in southern Gaza.

According to the latest update from Gaza’s health ministry, the death toll from the overnight bombardment of Rafah’s Tel Al-Sultan neighborhood has reached 45 people, including many children, with 294 others wounded. Rafah hosts hundreds of thousands of Palestinians displaced by the Israel-Hamas war.

“Outraged by the Israeli strikes that have killed many displaced persons in Rafah,” Macron wrote on X (formerly Twitter) on Monday.

Israeli military operations in the area “must stop” because there are “no safe areas in Rafah for Palestinian civilians… I call for full respect for international law and an immediate ceasefire,” the French president stated.

Meanwhile, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has vowed that Ankara will do everything in its power to ensure the “barbarians” who carried out the attack on Rafah are brought to justice.

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Israel claims deadly strike on Rafah was justified

In a speech on Monday, Erdogan again compared Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Adolf Hitler, claiming that he is “imitating” the Nazi German dictator. Netanyahu and his “murderous network” are trying to “extend their grip on power by massacring people as they fail to defeat Palestinian resistance,” he said.

The Turkish leader claimed Israel has shown itself to be a “terror state” by striking a Palestinian refugee camp, just days after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ordered it to halt its military actions in Rafah.

The IDF insists that the strike on Rafah was “carried out against legitimate targets under international law, using precise munitions and on the basis of precise intelligence.” According to the Israeli military, “significant Hamas terrorists were operating” in the Tel Al-Sultan neighborhood. However, the military said it was reviewing the incident, following reports of civilian deaths and a blaze at the camp.

The attack on Rafah followed rocket strikes on the Israeli city of Tel Aviv on Sunday, which the IDF said came from the Rafah area.

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At least, 36,000 people have been killed and more than 81,000 others wounded in Israeli airstrikes and the ground offensive in Gaza, according to the Palestinian enclave’s health ministry. Israel launched its operation in response to a cross-border incursion by Hamas last October, in which at least 1,200 people were killed and 250 taken hostage.