UNSC to hold emergency meeting on Rafah carnage

“The closed-door meeting was requested by Algeria, which is currently a non-permanent member of the Council,” AFP reported, citing diplomats.

A Security Council diplomatic source confirmed the pending meeting, speaking to Russia’s ITAR-TASS news agency.

Earlier, Israeli warplanes fired eight missiles towards makeshift shelters housing internally-displaced persons in Rafah’s northwest, killing at least 50 Palestinians.

Many world leaders and international organizations have vehemently condemned the attack, citing the already desperate situation of the victims.

“There is no safe place in Gaza. This horror must stop,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres posted on social media.

ActionAid UK, the British chapter of an international relief organization, noted that the shelters struck during the assault “were supposed to be safe havens for innocent civilians, yet they became targets of brutal violence.”

“Children, women, and men are being burned alive under their tents and shelters,” it noted.

Reacting to the massacre, the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas called it an “egregious affront” to a recent ruling by the International Court of Justice, which ordered the Israeli regime to “immediately” halt its offensive against Rafah.

The airstrikes came amid an October-present genocidal war that the regime has been waging against Gaza in response to a retaliatory operation by the territory’s resistance movements.

The war has so far claimed the lives of more than 36,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, throughout the coastal sliver.