The Biden administration has told Israel to take every precaution to protect civilians after a military strike in Rafah killed dozens of Palestinians, as it faced calls from some fellow democrats to halt military shipments to Israel.
“Israel has a right to go after Hamas, and we understand this strike killed two senior Hamas terrorists who are responsible for attacks against Israeli civilians,” a National Security Council spokesperson said.
“But as we’ve been clear, Israel must take every precaution possible to protect civilians.”
Mr Biden has faced increasing pressure from within his own party to scale back support for Israel, even before the airstrike on Sunday night that set tents and rickety metal shelters ablaze in a Rafah camp, killing 45 people.
Prominent democrat in the House of Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez called the strike “an indefensible atrocity”, adding in a social media post that “it is long past time for the president to live up to his word and suspend military aid.”
Representative Rashida Tlaib, the only Palestinian-American serving in Congress, called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a “genocidal maniac”.
A spokesperson said the US government was “actively engaging” with the Israeli military and others on the ground to assess what happened.
Mr Netanyahu said the strike was not intended to cause civilian casualties, but went “tragically wrong.”
“In Rafah, we already evacuated about 1 million non-combatant residents and despite our utmost effort not to harm non-combatants, something unfortunately went tragically wrong,” he said in a speech in parliament that was interrupted by shouting from opposition politicians.
Survivors said families were preparing to sleep when the strike hit the Tel Al-Sultan neighbourhood where thousands were sheltering after Israeli forces began a ground offensive in the east of Rafah over two weeks ago.
“We were praying… and we were getting our children’s beds ready to sleep. There was nothing unusual, then we heard a very loud noise, and fire erupted around us,” said one woman.
“All the children started screaming… The sound was terrifying; we felt like the metal was about to collapse on us, and shrapnel fell into the rooms.”
Video footage obtained by Reuters showed a fire raging in the darkness and people screaming in panic. A group of young men tried to haul away sheets of corrugated iron and a hose from a single fire truck began to douse the flames.
More than half of the dead were women, children, and elderly people, health officials in Hamas-run Gaza said, adding that the death toll was likely to rise from people with severe burns.
Read more:
Latest Middle East stories
Medics later said an Israeli airstrike on a house in Rafah had killed seven Palestinians, with several others wounded.
Israel’s military said Sunday’s strike, based on “precise intelligence”, had eliminated Hamas’ chief of staff for the second and larger Palestinian territory, the West Bank, plus another official behind deadly attacks on Israelis.
That followed the interception of eight rockets fired towards Israel from the Rafah area in Gaza’s southern tip.
Israel has kept up its offensive despite a ruling by the top UN court on Friday ordering it to stop, saying the court’s ruling grants it some scope for military action there.
The court also reiterated calls for the immediate and unconditional release of hostages held in Gaza by Hamas.
