The German government on Friday begged to differ with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's claim that there were “practically” no civilian deaths during Israel's military attack on Rafah in southern Gaza.
“There are already far too many deaths in this conflict and it affects Gaza, and of course it also affects Rafah and the region, and you know that the federal government is demanding significantly better protection for the people in the Gaza Strip, and explicitly Rafah,” Foreign Ministry deputy spokesperson Kathrin Deschauer said at a press briefing in Berlin.
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock has repeatedly voiced her expectation in her talks with the Israeli side that civilians in Gaza need to be better protected, she added.
Deschauer was referring to Netanyahu's speech in the US Congress on Thursday, when he claimed that a commander in Rafah told him that there had been practically no civilian deaths in the city, with the exception of “a single incident where shrapnel from a bomb hit a Hamas weapons depot and unintentionally killed two dozen people.”
However, there have been multiple reports and videos of Israeli strikes in Rafah resulting in civilian casualties.
The incident to which Netanyahu appeared to be referring occurred in May and killed at least 45 people at a camp for displaced Palestinians. The airstrike injured more than 200 after a fire broke out at the camp following the strike, most of them were women and children, according to the Gaza Health Ministry and Palestinian medics.
In the same week, at least 29 Palestinians were killed in two separate Israeli attacks on displacement camps in Rafah, according to Palestinian and UN officials.
The overall death toll in Gaza has risen to 39,175 since last Oct. 7, the Health Ministry in the enclave said on Thursday.
A ministry statement added that some 90,403 others have been injured in the assault.
Flouting a UN Security Council resolution demanding an immediate cease-fire, Israel has faced international condemnation amid its continued brutal offensive on Gaza since an Oct. 7, 2023 attack by Palestinian group Hamas.
Over nine months into the Israeli war, vast tracts of Gaza lie in ruins amid a crippling blockade of food, clean water and medicine.
Israel stands accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice, whose latest ruling ordered Tel Aviv to immediately halt its military operation in the southern city of Rafah, where over a million Palestinians had sought refuge from the war before it was invaded on May 6.
