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The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) is reporting that a deadly blaze in Rafah, Gaza, may have been caused by a hidden store of Hamas weapons rather than the airstrike itself.
The IDF said its airstrike targeted Hamas commanders using small munitions not capable of causing such a fire independently reports Times of Israel. The IDF suspects that the fire was ignited by a secondary explosion from hidden munitions or other combustible materials belonging to the terrorist organization.
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The IDF said it took precautions to avoid civilian casualties, targeting a Hamas compound away from civilian areas, but a fire was ignited and killed 45 civilians and wounded dozens.
Israel Prime Minister Netanyahu has called the incident a “tragic mishap,” while the United Nations Security Council planned an emergency meeting in response.
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The IDF said it will continue to investigate the incident and Netanyahu has vowed to continue operations to dismantle Hamas and return hostages, despite warnings from the U.S. and the International Court of Justice against a full-fledged offensive with more than one million displaced people in the area reports The Associated Press.
The IDF said it has instructed civilians to move to designated safe zones ahead of the strike and it had been tracking Hamas commanders Yassin Rabia and Khaled Najjar, who were killed in the strike.
IDF spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said the military took “a number of steps prior to the strike to avoid civilian casualties” during a press conference Tuesday.
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A report Hagari shared on X also stated that the location of the IDF attack was 1.7 km from the humanitarian space.
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The military said it used two small munitions each with a 17-kilogram warhead, reportedly the smallest their jets can use, that would not have been strong enough to start “a fire of this size.”
Other measures included aerial surveillance and “delaying the attack to further assess the expected civilian presence,” according to Hagari.
Hagari said that rocket launchers that were used during Hamas’ attack on Israel on October 7 were located 43 meters from the targeted site.
The deaths of the civilians in the strike were a “devastating incident, which we did not expect,” he added.
The IDF said the strike will be probed by an independent military body responsible for investigating unusual incidents amid the war.
The military is also reviewing videos shared on social media from the night of the strike which appear to show secondary explosions, as well as intercepted phone calls that reportedly discuss the strike hitting “an ammunition warehouse.”
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“We are working to verify the cause of the fire. It is still too early to be determined. Even when we do find the cause of the fire that erupted, it won’t make the situation any less tragic,” Hagari said.
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