AILSA CHANG, HOST:
In Netanyahu's speech to Congress yesterday, he described a recent visit to Rafah in southern Gaza. He said he asked a commander there how many civilians had been killed in Rafah since Israel began its offensive there in early May. And he said that commander told him...
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PRIME MINISTER BENJAMIN NETANYAHU: Practically none, with the exception of a single incident.
CHANG: That claim caught the ear of NPR's Kat Lonsdorf in Tel Aviv, as NPR has documented several incidents with high casualties in Rafah. A warning - this story contains descriptions of those attacks.
KAT LONSDORF, BYLINE: On May 31, 55-year-old Adib Shaqfa was walking with his 32-year-old son in western Rafah. It was a quiet day, he remembers. There was no fighting happening. Suddenly, a small drone appeared.
ADIB SHAQFA: (Speaking Arabic).
LONSDORF: The drone hit his son, he says, who was walking up ahead. Two men rushed in to help, but the drone hit them, too.
SHAQFA: (Speaking Arabic).
LONSDORF: Shaqfa says two old women were also hit in the head. He ran to help the women, but they were dead. His son was also killed. When told about what Netanyahu said to Congress about civilian deaths in Rafah, Shaqfa had this to say...
SHAQFA: (Speaking Arabic).
LONSDORF: "Netanyahu is known to lie," he says, "but the Americans know the truth."
In Gaza, it can be hard to know for sure who is a combatant and who is a civilian. Members of Hamas don't generally wear uniforms. And the Gaza Ministry of Health, which has tallied more than 39,000 killed since the war began in October, doesn't differentiate between civilians and combatants in its numbers. But NPR has documented multiple incidents of Palestinians killed during Israel's offensive in Rafah, often women and children...
(CROSSTALK)
LONSDORF: ...Like on May 7, when at least 25 people were killed overnight by Israeli airstrikes, including 13 members of the al-Dirby family. NPR spoke to the matriarch, Amal, as she sat in a tent that had been turned into a morgue, surrounded by her dead family members.
AMAL AL-DIRBY: (Crying, speaking Arabic).
LONSDORF: "Kids," she cried, "they were just kids."
Over the next few weeks, the U.N. reported at least 30 more Palestinians killed by Israeli air strikes in Rafah, many of whom were women and children. Then on May 26...
(CROSSTALK)
LONSDORF: ...A camp in Rafah housing displaced people went up in flames after an Israeli airstrike. Israel claims shrapnel hit a Hamas weapons storage unit, causing the inferno. Netanyahu did mention this in his speech last night, calling it the, quote, "single incident of civilian deaths in Rafah," saying, two dozen were killed. But the death toll was at least 45, according to the Ministry of Health, and hundreds more were injured.
NPR's Anas Baba was on the scene shortly after it happened and described children's body parts on the ground. He talked to a family of a pregnant woman who had been killed. Since then, the U.N. has documented at least 40 more Palestinians killed in individual air strikes in Rafah, again, many women and children. In Netanyahu's address, he added this as the reason for that allegedly low civilian death toll in Rafah.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
NETANYAHU: You want to know why? Because Israel got the civilians out of harm's way - something people said we could never do, but we did it.
LONSDORF: That received a standing ovation from dozens of U.S. lawmakers. But as NPR has reported many times in the past months, there isn't a place in Gaza that is, quote, "out of harm's way." More than 80% of the Gaza Strip has been placed under evacuation orders or designated as a no-go zone by the Israeli military, according to the U.N. And even, quote, "humanitarian areas" have been hit repeatedly by airstrikes as recently as yesterday. Kat Lonsdorf, NPR News, Tel Aviv. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.