The missiles used in Israel’s strike Monday targeting two top Hamas terrorists were too small to have sparked the fire that spread to a housing complex at Rafah filled with Palestinian civilians, an official from the Israel Defense Forces announced Tuesday. 

Contrary to reports from the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry, the attack took place more than a mile away from the designated humanitarian zone in the al-Mawasi area, and was not intended to harm Palestinians sheltering in the area, the IDF said. Only Hamas members occupied the targeted compound, the IDF said. 

The strike killed two senior Hamas members responsible for planning and executing terror attacks against Israeli citizens and who were actively commanding future terror operations, the IDF said. “Their deaths saved lives,” a spokesman for the IDF, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, said during a press briefing. 

The military objective was carried out by two small warheads with 17 kilograms of explosive material, Admiral Hagari said, and were “the smallest munition that our jets can use.” 

The subsequent “unexpected and unintended fire” that the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry reports killed 45 Palestinians, may have been triggered by a secondary blast from ammunition or other combustible materials stored in the area of the strike, initial IDF intelligence shows. “Our munition alone could not have ignited a fire of this size,” Admiral Hagari added. 

A phone call recording between two Gazans, released by the IDF, supports the claim that Hamas stored ammunition near the site.  “These were really ours?” asked one of the Gazans on the call, referring to the ammunition that exploded. 

“Yes, this is an ammunition warehouse. I tell you it exploded,” the other Gazan said, adding “I mean the Jewish bombing wasn’t strong, it was a small missile because it didn’t create a large hole.” 

The IDF has launched an investigation into the cause of the fire which will be “swift, comprehensive, and transparent,” Admiral Hagari said. “Our war is against Hamas and not against the people of Gaza, which is why we convey deep sorrow for this tragic loss of life.” 

Admiral Hagari added that “there is still terror in Rafah. There are still Hamas battalions in Rafah. A couple of days ago, launchers from Rafah fired into Tel Aviv. Millions of people went into bomb shelters.” 

The new intelligence reports come amid global condemnation of Israel for the strike and further calls for Israel to end its military operation at Rafah. 

Both Egypt and the Palestinian Authority accused Israel of deliberately targeting civilians in the attack. The president of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, pledged to “do everything possible” to hold Prime Minister Netanyahu, whom he described as “barbaric,” responsible for the strikes. 

Monday’s fire prompted Italy to issue one of its strongest criticisms yet of Israel’s war at Gaza, saying that it “can no longer be justified.” President Macron similarly called for an end to the war, saying he was “outraged by the Israeli strikes that have killed many displaced persons in Rafah” and that “these operations must stop.” Neither country called for the immediate release of the hostages from Gaza. 

Though the IDF’s intelligence report found that Israel’s strike was unlikely to have been the sole cause of the deadly fire, none of the aforementioned countries have retracted their statements. 

The situation at hand raises echoes  of the international furor early in the war over an attack on the Al-Ahli hospital, which was initially blamed on Israel, but then disproved by evidence supplied by the IDF. The lack of a bomb crater as well as the release of a recorded conversation between Hamas operatives disclosed the fact that the damage had been caused by a stray Islamic Jihad rocket. 

“Bottom line: wait for investigations to conclude and don’t believe terrorists and their supporters,” writes security and intelligence professional and former IDF intelligence officer Eric Schorr in a post on X today. 

Captain Schorr cautions against trusting or repeating the “numbers, figures and evidence” provided by Hamas, “a genocidal terrorist organization.”

He adds that “there is no way of ever knowing exactly what has happened until an investigation into the incident has taken place. And that, by definition, takes TIME.”