Israel admits errors in attack on refugee camp

Displaced Palestinians arrive at a makeshift tent camp in Rafah, Gaza Strip (AAP)

Displaced Palestinians arrive at a makeshift tent camp in Rafah, Gaza Strip, Source: AAP / Hatem Ali/AP

Gaza's health ministry says an Israeli air strike has killed at least 20 Palestinians and wounded 55 others in Rafah, a town near the southern border with Egypt. Palestinian health authorities say 210 people have been killed in the past 24 hours.


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TRANSCRIPT

Sound effect: People using their hands to dig through rubble

What you're hearing is the sound of people in Rafah using their hands to search through the rubble of buildings flattened by an Israeli air strike.

Chaotic, desperate scenes as the residents tried to free survivors, including a young child.

A man runs with an injured child rescued from the rubble towards Rafah's Kuwait Hospital where other injured children, women and men received medical treatment.

Gaza's Hamas-run health ministry says 21,320 people have been killed since the war erupted in early October.

Israel's army has put on record that at least some of those who have died in the war are what it calls "uninvolved civilians".

A military official has told the Israeli public broadcaster Kan news that the wrong weaponry was used in an attack on the Maghazi refugee camp on Christmas Eve.

"The type of ammunition used was not appropriate to the nature of the attack, causing collateral damage that could have been avoided."

And there was this from the Israeli military when questioned by the BBC about the attack on Maghazi which killed at least 86 people.

"The Israeli Defence Force regrets the injury to individuals not involved, and is working to learn from the incident."

Israel's Defence Force has published the findings of its investigation into the killing of three Israeli hostages by its troops on December 15.

It says it failed in its mission but that its soldiers acted to the best of their understanding and that "there was no malice in the event".

Israeli forces have been advancing on refugee camps in central Gaza and the United Nations says 150,000 Palestinians are being forced to flee.

The UN is also concerned about the West Bank and has called for Israel to end what it refers to as "the unlawful killings" of Palestinians.

The UN's High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk, says there's been a rise in settler attacks and instances of violence by Israeli security forces against Palestinians.

"From 7 October to 27 December this year, 300 Palestinians, including 77 children, have been killed in the occupied West Bank. In the same period, Israeli security forces have arrested more than 4,700 Palestinians, including about 40 journalists. At the same time, Israeli authorities have imposed severe and systematic restrictions on the movement of Palestinians across the West Bank."

A delegation from Hamas is expected to travel from Qatar to Cairo to give its assessment of an Egyptian ceasefire plan that was put forward last week.

The plan is said to call for staggered pauses in the fighting and the gradual release of the hostages in Gaza and some of the Palestinians held in Israeli jails.

The plan received a cool reception last week.

 


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